Losing faith

It seems apt to open my new blog with this poem I wrote many moons ago, when I was at uni. I wasn’t confident enough to refer to Islam, so I used the guise of Christianity. All these years later and the feelings associated with waiting and biding my time in the cage are still so vivid.

Losing Faith

Jessie fans herself with the Lord’s book.
I detach my clammy arm from hers.
My top clings to me
In this house of God
I am obscene.

The vicar shouts,
“Jesus healed the man with the withered hand!”
And we cry out
as if we are happy.

I have edged towards the back of the room
through the years
the summer sun cooks my shoulders.

We sit here with our withered hands
and bodies and souls,
flapping in the heat.

The vicar screams his outrage
and we wait restlessly,
like animals in a cage.